The Billionaire's Vinegar: The Mystery of the World's Most Expensive Bottle of Wine

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

It was the most expensive bottle of wine ever sold.

In 1985, at a heated auction by Christies of London, a 1787 bottle of Ch&acirc;teau Lafite Bordeaux&#8212;one of a cache of bottles unearthed in a bricked-up Paris cellar and supposedly owned by Thomas Jefferson&#8212;went for $156,000 to a member of the Forbes family. The discoverer of the bottle was pop-band manager turned wine collector Hardy Rodenstock, who had a knack for finding extremely old and exquisite wines. But rumors about the bottle soon arose. Why wouldnt Rodenstock reveal the exact location where it had been found? Was it part of a smuggled Nazi hoard? Or did his reticence conceal an even darker secret?

It would take more than two decades for those questions to be answered and involve a gallery of intriguing players&#8212;among them Michael Broadbent, the bicycle-riding British auctioneer who speaks of wines as if they are women and staked his reputation on the record-setting sale; Serena Sutcliffe, Broadbents elegant archrival, whose palate is covered by a hefty insurance policy; and Bill Koch, the extravagant Florida tycoon bent on exposing the truth about Rodenstock.

Pursuing the story from Monticello to London to Zurich to Munich and beyond, Benjamin Wallace also offers a mesmerizing history of wine, complete with vivid accounts of subterranean European laboratories where old vintages are dated and of Jeffersons colorful, wine-soaked days in France, where he literally drank up the culture.

Suspenseful, witty, and thrillingly strange, The Billionaires Vinegar is the vintage tale of what could be the most elaborate con since the Hitler diaries. It is also the debut of an exceptionally powerful new voice in narrative non-fiction.

Review:

"The titular bottle, from a cache of allegedly fine, allegedly French wine, allegedly owned by Thomas Jefferson in the 1780s, set a record price when auctioned in 1985. The subsequent brouhaha over the cache's authenticity takes wine journalist Wallace on a piquant journey into the mirage-like world of rare wines. At its center are Hardy Rodenstock, an enigmatic German collector with a suspicious knack for unearthing implausibly old and drinkable wines, and Michael Broadbent, a Christie's wine expert, who auctioned Rodenstock's lucrative finds. The argument over the Jefferson bottles and other rarities aged for decades, flummoxed a wine establishment desperate to keep the cork in a controversy that might deflate the market for antique vintages. (In the author's telling, a 2006 lawsuit almost settles the issue.) Wallace sips the story slowly, taking leisurely digressions into techniques for faking wine and detecting same with everything from Monticello scholarship to nuclear physics. He paints a colorful backdrop of eccentric oenophiles, decadent tastings and overripe flavor rhetoric (Broadbent describes one wine as redolent of chocolate and 'schoolgirls' uniforms'). Investigating wines so old and rare they could taste like anything, he playfully questions the very foundations of connoisseurship." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Review:

"It is the fine details — the bouquet, the body, the notes, the finish — that make this book such a lasting pleasure, to be savored and remembered long after the last page is turned. Ben Wallace has told a splendid story just wonderfully, his touch light and deft, his instinct pitch-perfect. Of all the marvelous legends of the wine trade, this curiously unforgettable saga most amply deserves the appellation: a classic." Simon Winchester, author of The Professor and the Madman and A Crack in the Edge of the World

Review:

"The Billionaire's Vinegar is the ultimate page-turner. Written with literary intelligence, it has a cast of characters like something out Fawlty Towers meets The Departed. It takes you into a subculture so deep and delicious, you can almost taste the wine that turns so many seemingly rational people into madmen. It is superb nonfiction." Buzz Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights

Synopsis:

Suspenseful, witty, and thrillingly strange, this work delivers the vintage tale of what could be the most elaborate con since the Hitler diaries.

Synopsis:

Two investigative reporters for the Los Angelesand#160;Times explore the looted antiquities scandal at the Getty Museum.

Synopsis:

In recent years, several of Americaand#8217;s leading art museums have voluntarily given up their finest pieces of classical art to the governments of Italy and Greece. The monetary value is estimated at over half a billion dollars. Why would they be moved to such unheard-of generosity?and#160;

The answer lies at the Getty, one of the worldand#8217;s richest and most troubled museums, and scandalous revelations that it had been buying looted antiquities for decades. Drawing on a trove of confidential museum records and frank interviews, Felch and Frammolino give us a fly-on-the-wall account of the inner workings of a world-class museum and tell the story of the Gettyand#8217;s dealings in the illegal antiquities trade. The outlandish characters and bad behavior could come straight from the pages of a thrillerand#8212;the wealthy recluse founder, the cagey Italian art investigator, the playboy curator, the narcissist CEOand#8212;but their chilling effects on the rest of the art world have been all too real, as the authors show in novelistic detail.and#160;

Fast-paced and compelling, Chasing Aphrodite exposes the layer of dirt beneath the polished faand#231;ade of the museum business.

About the Author

What Our Readers Are Saying

Average customer rating based on 1 comment:

tlabach, January 22, 2009 (view all comments by tlabach)
We are not mystified to think of wine as a drink that raises passions, or as a cornerstone of economies from California to Italy. Thinking of wine as a commodity to be traded like stocks in beyond the experience of most of us, as is the consideration that wine might be the target of fraudsters.

But the desire to possess wine - preferably ancient -- with links to the famous and infamous created a market in which wines were unearthed in forgotten cellars and then changed hands in some of the world's most prestigious auction houses. This unknown world is dissected in The Billionaire's Vinegar.

Benjamin Wallace focuses on bottles of wine purported to have belonged to American hero Thomas Jefferson. As the wines change hands, some owners, auctioneers, and vintners become uneasy and skeptical of the source of many of the discovered treasures - wine expert Hardy Rodenstock. Wallace traces the passage of the wines around the world and the debate in the wine community about whether the wines are authentic. There is no "eureka!" moment here, but a slow journey to the most likely answer to the mystery of The Billionaire's Vinegar.

Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No(4 of 9 readers found this comment helpful)

"Publishers Weekly Review"
by Publishers Weekly,
"The titular bottle, from a cache of allegedly fine, allegedly French wine, allegedly owned by Thomas Jefferson in the 1780s, set a record price when auctioned in 1985. The subsequent brouhaha over the cache's authenticity takes wine journalist Wallace on a piquant journey into the mirage-like world of rare wines. At its center are Hardy Rodenstock, an enigmatic German collector with a suspicious knack for unearthing implausibly old and drinkable wines, and Michael Broadbent, a Christie's wine expert, who auctioned Rodenstock's lucrative finds. The argument over the Jefferson bottles and other rarities aged for decades, flummoxed a wine establishment desperate to keep the cork in a controversy that might deflate the market for antique vintages. (In the author's telling, a 2006 lawsuit almost settles the issue.) Wallace sips the story slowly, taking leisurely digressions into techniques for faking wine and detecting same with everything from Monticello scholarship to nuclear physics. He paints a colorful backdrop of eccentric oenophiles, decadent tastings and overripe flavor rhetoric (Broadbent describes one wine as redolent of chocolate and 'schoolgirls' uniforms'). Investigating wines so old and rare they could taste like anything, he playfully questions the very foundations of connoisseurship." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Review"
by Simon Winchester, author of The Professor and the Madman and A Crack in the Edge of the World,
"It is the fine details — the bouquet, the body, the notes, the finish — that make this book such a lasting pleasure, to be savored and remembered long after the last page is turned. Ben Wallace has told a splendid story just wonderfully, his touch light and deft, his instinct pitch-perfect. Of all the marvelous legends of the wine trade, this curiously unforgettable saga most amply deserves the appellation: a classic."

"Review"
by Buzz Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights,
"The Billionaire's Vinegar is the ultimate page-turner. Written with literary intelligence, it has a cast of characters like something out Fawlty Towers meets The Departed. It takes you into a subculture so deep and delicious, you can almost taste the wine that turns so many seemingly rational people into madmen. It is superb nonfiction."

"Synopsis"
by Ingram,
Suspenseful, witty, and thrillingly strange, this work delivers the vintage tale of what could be the most elaborate con since the Hitler diaries.

"Synopsis"
by Firebrand,

Two investigative reporters for the Los Angelesand#160;Times explore the looted antiquities scandal at the Getty Museum.

"Synopsis"
by Firebrand,
In recent years, several of Americaand#8217;s leading art museums have voluntarily given up their finest pieces of classical art to the governments of Italy and Greece. The monetary value is estimated at over half a billion dollars. Why would they be moved to such unheard-of generosity?and#160;

The answer lies at the Getty, one of the worldand#8217;s richest and most troubled museums, and scandalous revelations that it had been buying looted antiquities for decades. Drawing on a trove of confidential museum records and frank interviews, Felch and Frammolino give us a fly-on-the-wall account of the inner workings of a world-class museum and tell the story of the Gettyand#8217;s dealings in the illegal antiquities trade. The outlandish characters and bad behavior could come straight from the pages of a thrillerand#8212;the wealthy recluse founder, the cagey Italian art investigator, the playboy curator, the narcissist CEOand#8212;but their chilling effects on the rest of the art world have been all too real, as the authors show in novelistic detail.and#160;

Fast-paced and compelling, Chasing Aphrodite exposes the layer of dirt beneath the polished faand#231;ade of the museum business.

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